Search

Supreme Court Case Files, 1939-1948 (Rolls 121-141, Boxes 63-74, 104-105). This series comprises 14 linear feet of materials and is arranged chronologically, beginning with the 1939 term and ending with the 1948 term. Preceding this arrangement are two folders titled "Listings of Justice Murphy's Opinions" and "Review of Justice Murphy's Opinions". The documents within these folders are arranged chronologically and function as an index and an overview of the materials within the case files.

For each term the court opinions have been divided into two sequences of files:

1. The first is a run of those cases for which Murphy delivered the opinion of the court, or for which he wrote a dissent or concurrence. These cases are arranged by case number.

2. The second sequence is made up of those other cases heard by the court during the term and for which Murphy did not write an opinion. The documentation of these cases is, not surprisingly, less voluminous. These cases are referred to collectively as "Other Cases". This run of cases is likewise arranged by case number, but the names are not included in the finding aid.

In order to facilitate research, the materials in each case file have been arranged, as closely as possible, in the following order (note that all the following types of documents need not necessarily comprise part of the documentation for any individual case):

1. A copy of the complete final published opinion of court, labeled "Final".

2. Drafts of opinions. Each justice, when writing an opinion, a dissent or a concurrence, submitted a "draft" and, if necessary, a number of "recirculations" of the draft to the other justices for their comments. These different versions of the final published opinion have been arranged in chronological order and labeled accordingly. Any given draft has not been microfilmed over and over again but only where it first occurs, then followed by the comments.

3. Earlier pre-circulation drafts and printer's proofs with revisions, labeled as "drafts" and arranged chronologically.

4. Background notes on the case and for Murphy's opinion, Murphy's detailed conference notes, memos, and other court-generated materials regarding the case.

5. Correspondence from private individuals regarding the opinion of the court, arranged chronologically.

6. Newspaper clippings regarding the opinion of the court, arranged chronologically.

As a further guide to the use of the Murphy Supreme Court files, Dr. Jan Palmer (Department of Economics, Ohio University, Athens) prepared the followed statement.

Almost all cases decided by the Court are selected from a multitude of petitions requesting interview. Most cases are received by the Court either as "appeals" or as petitions for a "writ of certiorari." The person filing the appeal is called the "appellant" and his opponent is called the "appellee." When the Court elects to rule on an appeal, it "notes probable jurisdiction". Otherwise, the appeal is "dismissed for want of a substantial federal question". A person seeking a writ of certiorari is called the "petitioner"and his opponent is called the "respondent". The request for a writ of certiorari is either granted or denied. Although there are statutory differences between appeals and writs of certiorari, there is little practical difference. Most appeals are dismissed and most petitions for certiorari are denied. Hereafter, both are referred to as petitions for review.

Petitions for review are filed on the Court's appellate or miscellaneous dockets. The appellate docket's petitions are standardized in form and are almost always the work of attorneys. The respondent's or appellee's attorney may file counter petitions requesting that review be denied. The miscellaneous docket contains requests for stays, writs of prohibition, writs of mandamus, writs of habeas corpus, and - beginning with the 1947 term - requests to proceed in forma pauperis. The majority of cases in the miscellaneous docket are in forma pauperis petitions for writs of certiorari. During the 1946 term, in forma pauperis petitions for certiorari were included in the appellate docket.

After being received by the Court, petitions for review or memoranda discussing them are distributed to the justices by the Clerk of the Court. Every petition is placed on the agenda of a weekly conference where it is discussed at the volition of one justice. Before each conference, the Chief Justice's staff distributes a list of petitions it considers to be completely without merit. Most petitions are never considered during the conference, i.e., are rejected automatically when no one requests that they be discussed. Granting a petition for review requires affirmative votes from four of the nine justices. The conference is secret and usually neither the reason for the action nor the votes of the individual justices are revealed - Justices Douglas and Black occasionally dissented from a denial of review and stated the reason why they thought the cases should have been decided by the Court.

If the Court grants a petition for review, one of three actions follows: (1) the review is subsequently dismissed as moot or "improvidently granted", (2) the Court reaches and announces a summary decision on the merits of the case based on the information in the petition and the counter petition; (3) the case is scheduled for oral and/or written argument after which the justices discuss the case at a weekly conference where a preliminary vote on the merits is taken. This secret vote is referred to as the "conference vote on the merits".

If a case warrants a written opinion, the senior member of the majority in the conference vote on the merits assigns the responsibility for authoring the Court's opinion. The Chief Justice is the Court's most senior member. Therefore, when he is in the majority, he either authors the opinion or assigns the responsibility to an assenting justice. If the Chief Justice is in the minority, the assignment is made by the majority's senior member. The author circulates a tentative opinion which the other justices "join" via memos. Justices are free to change their votes until the opinion is announced, and so what begins as a majority opinion may become a dissent or vice versa. If the author's opinion fails to hold the majority, the assignment can be switched to another justice and/or the case can be reargued with a second conference vote on the merits. Unlike the vote on granting review and the conference vote on the merits, the Court's final vote is not secret and is available in the United States Reports.

In addition to votes on certiorari, jurisdiction, and the merits, there are occasional votes on "questions" such as whether to grant a rehearing or whether the case is moot. There are also a few votes on requests for stays and writs of habeas corpus, writs of mandamus, and writs of prohibition. Like most of the Court's actions, these votes are secret. As stated above, the final decision is published but the vote on certiorari and the conference vote on the merits are only available in justices' docket books.

Part of this series includes Murphy's docket books for the 1939 to 1947 terms. The pages of the 1946 docket book are filed together and can be found in Rolls 134-135. The 1947 docket book was disassembled and filed with the case materials found in Roll 139. Murphy's docket books contain only limited information, usually about the conference vote on the merits of a given case. However, his conference notes (found in the case files) contain detailed information about the discussions which preceded the votes. For the 1946 and 1947 terms, this method of filing is not important unless a researcher needs to look simultaneously at all the information for one case. In many instances relevant information on a docket book page is separated from the complementary information in the conference notes (case file) for the following reasons:

1. The 1946 docket book pages are not in the same files as the 1946 conference notes (case files) as explained above.

2. Many cases begun during the 1946 term were continued in the 1947 term. When cases are continued in the next term they are assigned a new docket number. When this happened, Murphy often crossed out the 1946 docket number (in the upper right hand corner of the page), wrote in the 1947 number, and wrote "refile". These pages were not, however, always refiled. Thus, docket book pages which are still filed with the 1946 term may contain information that is more relevant to the 1947 term. Conversely, pages missing from the 1946 docket book might be found in the 1947 case files.

3. Sometimes two or more cases are combined into one decision. When this happens the information about the decision can be spread over different docket book pages in the same term. In order to obtain all the information about the case, it is necessary to consult the related - "vide" - cases.